A prerogative of the French president, the choice of "great men" to be inducted into the Pantheon is an eminently political act, in the noblest sense of the word. It's a decision that expresses the country's values, celebrates the exemplary figures who embody them and proclaims pride in shared ideals. In this light, Emmanuel Macron's decision to lay the remains of Missak Manouchian and his wife, Mélinée, to rest in the republican temple of French heroes and heroines is a powerful and salutary message. The induction of the two immigrant members of the Resistance who fought against Nazism into the Panthéon in Paris is first and foremost an act of justice that sheds light on a part of history that has long been obscured. It is also a clear affirmation of the role of foreigners in the life of the country and of France's ability to radiate universal values.
Foreigners or stateless, Jews or of Armenian origin like the Manouchians, communists, anti-fascists, internationalists, the fighters of the Francs-tireurs et partisans de la main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI, component of the French Resistance) were also "French by preference," in the words of the poet Aragon, meaning French by choice of the ideals of the 1789 revolution. Eighty years after the execution of their leader Missak Manouchian and 21 of his comrades, on February 21, 1944 – Olga Bancic was beheaded in Germany – these 23 martyrs, known to the collective memory through the Red Poster, which denounced them as "the army of crime," are solemnly entering French history through the front door.
Coherence needed
Such an event was not to be taken for granted, given that the unanimous Gaullist narrative of the Resistance and the nationalist narrative of the Communist Party long overshadowed the role of foreigners. After François Hollande's refusal in 2014 to accept the first requests for the entry of the "Manouchian group" into the Panthéon, Macron's decision to include them marks, according to his statements to Communist newspaper L'Humanité, "a way of looking at our history differently, of inventing another relationship with our compatriots whose families come from elsewhere."
While positive, this mature vision of the national narrative requires a minimum of coherence. The celebration of immigrant resistance fighters cannot be dissociated from the current context, that of a country plagued by xenophobia fanned by the far right. Rarely has a "pantheonization" resonated so strongly with the zeitgeist.
In asserting that "far-right forces would be well advised not to attend" the ceremony on Wednesday, February 21, the French president has stated the obvious: Marine Le Pen's party, successor to the Front National which counted Holocaust deniers and collaborators among its founders, is the heir to the French who hunted down and handed over Resistance fighters, who associated "foreigner," "Jew" and "crime." Decency and respect should be enough to dictate that the Rassemblement National (RN, far-right) take a step back. A political party that uses foreigners as scapegoats has no business celebrating their heroism.
But the significance of Macron's ceremony would be much greater if he stopped wavering between the moral postures he adopts in his memorial speeches and the actions he takes to place the RN leadership and certain of its themes at the heart of his political strategy. Fighting the far right requires a clear course of action. And not one that confirms its obsessions or forgets its sinister history when it comes to today's political jousting.